Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Book Blurb: What if Aladdin had never found the lamp? This first book in the A Twisted Tale line will explore a dark and daring version of Disney's Aladdin. When Jafar steals the Genie's lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish.To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. But soon their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war. What happens next? A Street Rat becomes a leader. A princess becomes a revolutionary. And readers will never look at the story of Aladdin in the same way again.

My Review: When I first heard about this book I was super excited to read it. Then when I went to go buy it I started reading the reviews on amazon and got disheartened about it. Amazon reviews make it seem like such a bad book and in addition to the $9.99 price tag just for a ebook edition did put me off this story for awhile. But I just recently got an Amazon gift card for my birthday and I decided to pick it up.
I will say that the reader needs to go into this book with an open mind about Aladdin. The book quite clearly states it is a twisted fairytale and you do get that. The majority of reviewers on Amazon complained that it doesn't resemble Disney's Aladdin at all. Yes, the first 23% of the book did follow the movie pretty well with some added background but then it goes off into this glorious tangent of a tale that anybody who enjoys a good variation of a classic story would enjoy. I believe my favorite part of the book was when Aladdin thinks he's hallucinating Abu and the magic carpet in the Cave of Wonders. If you give this book a chance you get immersed in the world of an Agrabah in the midst of a civil war. There are new characters that add to the story and old characters that get character development that they didn't get in the movie.

I did not want to put this book down once I started to read it. Unfortunately I had to sleep and go to work. This book is a wonderful addition to any library and I will be picking up book two of this series once it's released.